Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, step inside Mosco’s Traveling Wonder Show, a menagerie of human curiosities and misfits guaranteed to astound and amaze! But perhaps the strangest act of Mosco’s display is Portia Remini, a normal among the freaks, on the run from McGreavy’s Home for Wayward Girls, where Mister watches and waits. He said he would always find Portia, that she could never leave. Free at last, Portia begins a new life on the bally, seeking answers about her father’s disappearance. Will she find him before Mister finds her? It’s a story for the ages, and like everyone who enters the Wonder Show, Portia will never be the same.
Not even gonna lie, definitely the cover that initially sucked me in... that, and me being a sucker for a story set in a circus community!
Growing up in the 1920s-30s, Portia Remini, having been abandoned by her parents, is left in the care of her Aunt Sophia. By Portia's teen years, Sophia decides she's not equipped to be her niece's guardian anymore, so she arranges for Portia to be taken in at McGreavey's Wayward School for Girls.
By 1939, young Portia, wanting to escape this so called "school" -- which turns out to be more like a work farm managed by a guy that gives off strong pedo vibes --- steals a bike from McGreavey (often just referred to as "Mister") and takes off to find any trace of her family. Her biggest hope is to find her father, who she vaguely remembers had a tendency to hang with the traveling circus crowd. Portia gets a spot on Mosco's Wonder Show, but in the back of her mind she knows that Mister will always be on the hunt for her, so if she wants the safety of a family, she'll have to make quick work of tracking them down.
Portia bunks up with Violet, who runs the pie car (aka the circus' food service department). Violet prides herself on being "a normal", though her parents and brother all work as one of the circus acts because of their albinism, which Violet does not have. Portia also befriends Gideon, another "normal" who came from a background of wealth until the family lost everything during the Banking Panic of 1933. The other members of the circus crew take a little longer to warm up to the newbie, but eventually everyone (for the most part...with maybe the exception of Violet's brother) comes around to accepting her as one of their own.
The bulk of the story is told from the perspective of Portia's experiences, but occassionally the POV is shifted temporarily to one of the other circus members, who shares their notes as an outside observer to Portia's life.
Most of the chapters are only 1-3 pages long, so the story does move at a nice pace... I just wish Hannah Barnaby had gone a little more in-depth with the world building.
The circus world element doesn't really get going until Part 2 of the story (about 82-83 pages in), and even then the bulk of the scenes, at least for awhile, seem to center around the pie car. While some time is spent going into the details of the various acts of the performers, for the most part the novel focuses more on their behind-the-scenes lives... and even there, it's only passing moments of detail that the reader is offered. I remember getting just slightly beyond the halfway point and still feeling like I didn't know Portia all that well.
Still, it's a fun time to be had. There are great characters here, I just wish I gotten to know them better.
*Note to parents: If you're at all sensitive about the types of books you want your child reading, be aware that this novel has a light amount of cursing and scenes suggesting that one of the circus acts developed into a secret nude dancing show.
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